"For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:" Romans 13:3. Actually the power of the state to "reward" the righteous is the benefit of its absence. The question, "Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority?" (NIV translation of Romans 13:3b), means the state doesn't bother you. It is a benefit of absence.
The reward is also indirect - security. The state keeps the thief and murderer away from you, your family, and your property. If the state is taking your property or restricting your liberty, even though you are not a criminal, the state has left the bounds of its appropriate function given to it by God. It has become perverted and seeks to accomplish something else, which it was not intended for and cannot accomplish. See post on "Snake Oil Salesmen."
If the state is transferring wealth to someone productive, like a successful business or doctors, it is improper. However, it is much less damaging to the society than transferring wealth to the wicked, like the indolent, the immoral, or even fraudsters. The American welfare system does this by transferring wealth to those who do not work, to those who have learned how to game the system like having children out of wedlock, and to those who simply know how to steal and defraud the federal government. It is wicked and even stupid to take from the productive to give to the evil and unproductive. If pursued over time, it will destroy those whom it was intended to help and the society itself. We see this in progress today with children and families (typically fatherless families) remaining in poverty and dependent upon government assistance generationally. The grandchildren and great grandchildren and on and on continue in the path of their foremothers, learning how to live off the productivity of others by taxation instead of developing their own productivity or marrying productive husbands. No matter how you define poverty, they are dependent upon the state performing transfers of wealth from the righteous to the wicked. (The state should punish wicked fathers who are unfaithful to their wives and children, putting their welfare in jeopardy. Instead, their wicked ways are rewarded because the welfare system acts as a surrogate father, allowing them to use whatever capital they have to support themselves or start new families. These same wicked fathers then vote - self-servingly - for liberal politicians who accuse conservative politicians of being heartless toward single women, the same women whom the wicked fathers either made single or never married after getting them pregnant.)
If the state subsidizes some aspect of the economy for what it thinks is a good purpose, doctors for example, then it is acting beyond its bounds. It is violating the market's rules for who should be rewarded, and it is acting as a rewarder beyond the intent of God for the state. If doctors were suffering in our economy for some reason beyond their control and the people's health was suffering as a result, then perhaps it could be justified as a temporary measure only. Such a temporary measure would not justify an entire overhaul of the nation's medical and health insurance system, thereby restricting individuals' and businesses' liberty to develop, build, choose, etc.
The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) of 1646 expands upon the state's security purpose of Romans 13 with respect to the Church when it states:
"III. Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; yet he has authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administrated, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he has power to call synods, to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God."* Original 1646 version, not the edited American version of 1788.
Therefore, as a co-government with the state (Matt. 18:17-20), as the representative of Christ on earth (Matt. 16:13-20), as "the pillar and ground of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15), the Church receives from the state protection from evildoers, except when the state itself is acting as an evildoer and usurping the power of the Church. The Church holds God's healing and salvation function in society, not the state.
Once the state begins to go outside the boundaries set by God for its justice function, it begins to take from the righteous, implicitly punishing the righteous. Its perversion can only increase from that point on until it limits itself to its God ordained Romans 13 purpose. Do not seek monetary reward from the state, except for actual work/service as an employee, and do not seek salvific or health effects from the state. Your hope is not in the state, it is in God. Worship Him alone, and He shall be your salvation and your prosperity. Deuteronomy 8.
*The WCF clause above on Civil Government is based in part on the following scriptures:
"And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." Isa. 49:23. "Because of the house of the Lord our God I [King David] will seek thy good." Psalm 122:9. "Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven: for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons? 25 And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not. 26 And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment. 27 Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem: 28 And hath extended mercy unto me before the king, and his counsellers, and before all the king's mighty princes. And I was strengthened as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me, and I gathered together out of Israel chief men to go up with me." Ezra 7:23-28. "And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death." Lev. 24:16. "And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. 6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers. 12 If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying, etc. 2KI 18:4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan." Deut. 13:5-12. (1CH 13:1-8; 2KI 24:1-25) "And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers." II Chron. 34:33. And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; 13 That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman." II Chron. 15:12. (Copied from www.blueletterbible.org)
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